


Ten of Wands

by vicewithavice



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Beta Earth, F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-10-10 18:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicewithavice/pseuds/vicewithavice
Summary: Jade buys Rose a deck of Tarot cards for her 16th birthday.





	1. Seven of Cups

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and for your 16th birthday you have received, among other things, a deck of tarot cards. The cards have a worn quality about them; some are bent at the corners and others faded around the edges; most are creased in the middle. Humming along to your music, you observe each card, holding it close in the dim evening light, learning the face of each. You immediately recognize the tangled and unknowable depictions of the zoologically dubious Old Gods lovingly painted as if by hand: there are black smudges and uneven lines that telegraph the rustic and unique nature of the deck. Each card has a banner with its title, but the printing isn't in English. The letters are Roman, but certainly don't arrange into words consistent with any Germanic or Romantic languages. 

But it's not unfamiliar. You glance at the empty spot on the wall where you kept your horrorterror posters. They came down shortly after your 14th birthday in a pique of adolescent metamorphosis in which you shed yourself of the interests of your youth. All that's left now is a darker patch against the sun-bleached wall. You remember them fondly now, and recall the same consonant-and-apostrophe heavy language emblazoned upon them that you hold in your hands. 

There’s a note in the package inscribed with Jade’s characteristically loopy green handwriting. Drawings of flowers and constellations litter the margins, also characteristically. You berate yourself for digging into the present like an antsy child at Christmas before reading the letter, but there’s no one to witness your gaffe but a life-size Sigmund Freud cardboard cutout in the corner of your room. Another gift.

hey rose! happy birthday! its always so hard to shop for you but i think you will really like these. I remembered how much you liked the horrorterrors as a kid so i wanted to send you something nostalgic. i found these on ebay and they were listed as being haunted by demons so of course i thought of you :p they say its bad luck to buy yourself a deck of tarot cards, so i got you these to make sure theres nothing but good luck in your future! to be honest rose i dont think you need these, youre the most insightful person i know and i trust your advice more than some random cards, but i think they will really suit your "aesthetic" hehehe. if you ever learn how to read them id love for you to tell my fortune! have a great sweet sixteen rose!  
<3 jade  
PS squiddles still rule ok!!

You catch yourself smiling as you read, your heart beating in syncopated rhythms whenever Jade says something nice. She says a lot of nice things because she's a nice person, and you wish you could have let yourself be so honest in your letter to her. You spent hours on it, but despite the lengthy word count you didn't say much of anything. As you've transitioned from childhood to your teenage years, you've found Jade to be your most dependable confidante, and hopefully you hers. Sincerity is such a difficult emotion to replicate, but you’re practicing.

Your phone lights up, illuminating a small patch around your bed. You tear your eyes away from the letter, only to find that same green text on your screen. 

\- - gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering tentacleTherapist[TT] \- -  
GG: happy birthday rose! did you get my present?  
TT: What serendipitous timing, I just finished reading your letter.  
GG: oh good :D im finally getting the knack for mailing out parcels in time  
GG: i sent it out aaaaages ago   
TT: Looks like providence is smiling down upon us.  
GG: whats providence doing looking at two teenage girls? perv!!  
TT: I assume my timing is more congruous with a malformed sundial than a precision Rolex.  
GG: haha what?  
TT: My present hasn't arrived yet, has it?  
GG: noooo not yet   
GG: its ok itll get here eventually!   
TT: Sorry.  
GG: dont be sorry!  
GG: what do you think of the tarot deck?  
TT: I love it, thank you.  
GG: aww good! <3  
TT: Is it really haunted or did you just say that?  
GG: haha the ebay listing really did claim it is haunted so watch out!!  
GG: who even knows how many ghosts are hiding in that deck waiting for their chance to jump out at you!  
TT: Possibly as many as 78 ghosts, assuming they aren't cohabitating.  
GG: thats too many ghosts! xD  
TT: It will be a tight squeeze, but as long as they hold up their end of the bargain re: communing their knowledge of the future with me, they can stay.  
GG: that sounds like the plot to one of johns silly movies  
TT: My Roommate is 1-78 Ghosts.   
GG: yes!!   
GG: have you tried the cards out yet?  
TT: Not yet, I'm just observing.   
TT: No time like the present, though. Shall I do a reading for you?  
GG: already? do you even know how to read them yet?  
TT: No, but I find the best approach in taking up a new hobby is to jump in with both feet and little foreknowledge.  
TT: Turn your video on, I'm sure the forces of divination won't be dissuaded by several thousand miles and an ocean.  
GG: ok but my mic is still broken :(  
TT: You have a telescope NASA would pay millions for in your house but you can't fix a laptop.  
GG: i dont have the right parts D: dave is sending them to me but who knows when they'll get here

The screen goes black for just a moment, extinguishing the last source of light from your room. Then Jade is on your phone, smiling unabashedly at you with her buck teeth. Her curly hair is loose around her shoulders; normally when you chat she's working around her greenhouse, hair pulled up in a messy bun. When it's down like this you can see the uneven layers that convey a hasty haircut, probably done with garden shears in the bathroom. You try not to worry about how you look, and keep yourself from nervously adjusting your headband by shuffling the deck.

GG: hi rose!   
GG: oh you can't type while youre shuffling aha  
GG: this is so exciting do you think it will work?   
GG: ooooh you could be an oracle communing directly with the spirits  
GG: you better put in a good word with the gods for me rose!!  
GG: oh wow theres so many cards are you supposed to memorize all of them?   
TT: Alright, I think these are adequately shuffled.   
TT: I'm not going to lay these all out, just tell me a number between one and seventy eight and I'll pull it.   
TT: Think carefully. If you don't like the result it's nobody's fault but yours.  
GG: jeez, so much pressure  
GG: ok im looking real hard at the cards  
GG: hmmmm… 

Jade's face actually screws up into a look of concentration, her eyes shut tight and her brows furrowed. Her tongue is even poking out of her teeth. It’s unabashedly goofy and totally natural for her, while every muscle in your face has been trained into compliance. You take a screen capture.

GG: rose my mic isnt working but i can still hear the shutter sound when you screen grab!  
TT: My mistake. I'll be more inconspicuous in the future.  
GG: can i at least see the creeper shots youre taking of me?  
[TentacleTherapist sent a file]  
GG: ahahaha thats pretty funny  
GG: no ones around to tell me how silly i look  
TT: You look cute.  
GG: thanks <3  
GG: ok i picked my number!  
GG: *drumroll*  
TT: You don't need to RP when I can see you waving your invisible drumsticks in the air.  
GG: haha right!  
GG: the number is ………   
GG: …………………  
TT: …  
GG: ………………  
TT: Ok.   
GG: ……………  
GG: five!!!!!  
TT: Five?  
GG: yup five  
GG: do you know why its five rose??  
TT: I'm sure I could never guess.  
GG: it is five because thats your birthday (4) and my birthday (1) added together!  
TT: Thank you for the parentheticals. You wouldn't want to be presumptuous and assume I know both my own and my best friend's birth dates.  
GG: har har! just flip those cards missy!

You do as she says, starting at the top of the deck and counting all the way to five. You try to do this all one handed while holding your phone overhead for Jade to see, which makes for a pretty uncomfortable reading. When you reach the fifth card you flip it over, laying it out on your bedsheet. Just like all of them, this card has a depiction of a horrible, terrible monster looking out at you with one eye. In the weak light of your phone you swear you can see its tentacles twitching. 

GG: wow thats pretty ugly! can i change my card?  
TT: It's not ugly.  
TT: And no, it's too late to change your fate. Destiny has spoken, all we can do is listen in quiet awe.  
GG: fiiiine. so what does mrs. destiny reveal?  
TT: Well, you drew the seven of cups, so it probably means you need to drink more water.  
GG: how do you know?  
TT: Call it an educated guess.  
GG: i mean how do you know its the seven of cups?  
TT: It says right on the card. Here…

You zoom in for Jade to see the unintelligible fictional language heralded on the illustrated banner at the top of the card. Now that you're looking closely, you don't know how you could have surmised which card it is; there's no English translation anywhere, and there are certainly no context clues to interpret. It just felt obvious, as natural as reading the title. 

TT: I guess I don't.  
TT: It must be a card I've seen in the past.   
GG: oh ok!   
GG: but for real do you know what it means?  
TT: I have no idea. But maybe you should have a glass of water, just in case.   
TT: Wouldn't want to disobey a direct order from the macabre menagerie.  
GG: fine, im going to get a drink but i was already thirsty!  
GG: brb 

Jade slides out of her webcam's view and you're left to observe her bedroom. It looks the way it always has, filled with tangled wires, creeping vines, and posters of anthropomorphic animals she refuses to admit is some real furry shit. She told you that she lives on her island alone with a stash of provisions and an impressive garden. In all the years you've known her, and you've known her for most of your life at this point, she's never lied about anything so you’re inclined to believe it, though it’s horrifying to imagine someone even more secluded than you. You’d call child protective services if you knew what country she was in, and if she wasn’t so insistent on staying. Sometimes when you’re chatting over video she’ll roll up her sleeve or skit and show you some manner of burn or gash, proudly recounting with a toothy grin how she got it. She told you once that John and Dave are too squeamish to look at her various wounds. That statement filled you with a morbid glee, knowing this was something she only shared with you.

You pointedly don’t look at the looming figure of Freud. 

Jade comes back into view, the corners of her mouth shining from her drink. You don't think about it. You busy yourself looking at the cards while she settles into her chair.

GG: sorry it took so long i ran into bec in the kitchen  
GG: i havent seen him in ages! i think hes getting old now he keeps disappearing by himself  
GG: ive had him since i was born so he must be at least sixteen! but he can still move when he wants to  
GG: hehe i love that dog i hope hes ok <3  
GG: i know he cant live forever but…  
GG: theres something about him that makes me think maybe he could!  
GG: its silly but hes a really special dog!   
GG: i dont know what ill do when he dies  
GG: i guess ill put him next to popop   
GG: now im sad :(  
GG: rose?   
GG: hellooooo  
GG: …………?  
GG: i can see you but maybe something happened to your screen?  
GG: haha youre still looking at those cards. im glad you liked them!  
GG: alright im gonna go to bed now  
GG: goodnight <3

A sound down the hallway pulls you from your observation. You blink a few times, pulling yourself forcibly from your reverie— you must have zoned out while you were looking through the cards. There's a pile next to you, like you've been going through them one by one, but you don't even remember doing it. You gather them into a pile and set them face down on your nightstand before it dawns on you that you were in the middle of a conversation. Your phone is buried deep in your sheets, so you pull it free and unlock the screen. Jade sent you a handful of messages before logging off for the night, but you never heard the notification noises. The timestamp reads 10:47 pm, nearly an hour ago.

You can't account for the hour-long dive into spontaneous amnesia, nor your hasty recovery, so you send off a quick apology to Jade with a promise to pick up the conversation tomorrow. 

Before sleeping you pick up your journal and flip to a fresh page. You can never bring yourself to read old pages because you're certain that whatever you wrote a week ago was overwrought and melodramatic. Your current entry is overwrought and melodramatic too, but you did just experience an alarming dissociative phenomenon. 

Even in the deepest recesses of your own journal, you can’t quite bring yourself to plainly state that it was scary. You don’t mention that there are days you wish you could just untether yourself from time and wake up a week in the future because you can’t stand another day in this house with her. That you’re so lonely and you don’t know how to have a fulfilling conversation with a girl that makes your stomach flip and your face burn red. You definitely don’t write that with every scratch of your pen on paper, you think you hear whispering voices calling your name.


	2. The Tower

You wake up to bright afternoon light and a crow rudely cawing outside your window. You groan and throw your arm over your eyes knowing that despite your poor sleep last night, rest has abandoned you. Last night's dream tinges the edge of your conscience, but the harder you think about it the faster it evades you. All you remember is a sinking feeling in your stomach. With a dramatic flourish you toss your bedsheets off of you and push yourself upright, shuddering at the cold shock of air that greets you: your mother must have left town for another meeting and turned the heat off. Funny how she can remember to be energy efficient but forgets her own living, breathing daughter. 

You make your way over to the laptop and bring up your classes. This deep in the forest, no school district was willing to bus you in, and you certainly weren’t going to let your mom drive you the thirty minutes into town even if she did own a car. You think about John and Dave who complain about going to school all the time, and their difficulty in navigating and determining their place in the complex social hierarchy of highschool (they never said that outright, but you can read between the lines). You have no delusions that if you went to a brick-and-mortar school you wouldn't find yourself weathering the same precarious position, but it would be nice to see other people. 

You do your schoolwork until your fingers go numb and your breath leaves your mouth as a small cloud. Why did she have to pull this shit in December? You cave and venture out to the living room, wrapping a blanket around you as you go, feet shuffling down the empty hallways. Ideally you would have left the heat off until your mom returned to make her feel bad, but you realize this is a gambit you aren’t willing to commit to. Maybe you’ll turn it off before she gets back to let the house cool down again, but you have no idea when that will be. 

Grumbling through the house, you find the thermostat in the dark room and push buttons at random. Like much of the confusing technology in your house, it's marked with the SkaiaNet logo. Your mother used to bring back all kinds of new gadgets to test out, but she hasn't done it in years.

The furnace rattles to life after a series of increasingly frustrated attempts. Not only has she stopped bringing new technology into the house, she doesn't seem interested in maintaining what's already here. A paltry wave of heat radiates from the furnace so you park yourself in front of it, holding your hands out to the sole source of warmth like an Arctic explorer around a fire. 

As you wait for the house to warm up, you think back to last night's dream. It sits with you differently than most dreams in a way you struggle to grasp. You pull your phone from your pocket with frozen fingers and awkwardly pull up Pesterchum. 

TT: I had a strange dream last night.  
EB: haha you probably ate too much cheese!   
TT: Maybe. Can I tell you about it?  
EB: ohohoh the analyzer has become the analyzee!   
EB: let me get my pen and notepad out.  
EB: thank god i’m already wearing my fake mustache, what kind of psychologist would i be without one?  
EB: not one worth his salt that’s for sure. thank god you came to me rose, not some hack in aviator sunglasses.  
TT: Is it too late to change my mind?  
EB: yes! i am already comfortably reclining on my leather sofa getting ready to shrink the fuck out of you.  
EB: lay it on me.  
TT: We were going to play a game.  
TT: The four of us, I mean.  
EB: i love games!   
TT: Yes, you were particularly invested in getting us all to play. In fact, we were going to start playing on your 13th birthday.  
EB: what kind of game was it?   
TT: It was a video game. You, Dave, and myself each had a copy of it, and we were going to play it together. I can’t recall the objective of the game, or if we even knew what it was in the first place.   
TT: Jade didn’t have a copy, but it was understood she would play, too.  
TT: But we didn’t play it. For some reason we never played the game, and I’ve got this dreadful feeling about it.   
TT: It's as if by not playing this game, we've created an aberrant offshoot, and whatever we do now doesn't matter.  
TT: The universe is simply waiting for us to die.  
EB: so you dreamt that we were going to play a game but then we didn’t?  
TT: Yes.  
TT: …  
TT: When I read it over, I realize how absurd this sounds.   
EB: yeah, kinda.   
TT: But it gets more stupid.   
TT: This is where I reveal the dream was in fact not a dream but a long-forgotten memory all along.  
TT: I'll pause to allow you time to readjust your monocle, which certainly dropped in surprise at such an audacious statement.   
EB: a memory? i don’t remember any of this. are you SURE you weren’t just having some crazy cheese dream, rose?   
TT: None of this is familiar?  
EB: sorry! i remember my 13th birthday, it was when you and dave both got me those stuffed bunnies, and my dad gave me a little monsters poster. it’s so sweet i still have that on my wall.  
EB: but i don’t remember any game… what else do you remember?  
TT: Almost nothing else. In fact, the term “memory” doesn’t quite describe it. It’s more akin to having statements whispered to you in your sleep which you are compelled to accept as fact despite finding no corroboration.   
EB: do you really believe it rose? that our lives don't matter?   
EB: i think this is going above my pay grade, here.   
TT: I've thought for a while that my life was a great cosmic joke, and now it seems the voices in my head are getting in on it.  
TT: Maybe I'm spending too much time alone.  
TT: I'm rapidly approaching the age at which it's appropriate to move out, and I always thought I would live on my own in some small apartment somewhere.  
TT: But now there's someone specific I want to be with and they're literally unreachable.  
TT: Sorry, I digress.  
EB: wow that's a lot to take in.  
EB: you know dave said something about getting a car, maybe he can drive up and we can all meet.  
EB: argh i'm sorry that seems like a shitty thing to say after you confided so much in me.  
TT: You're doing fine.  
EB: ok well i still think i am failing as your therapist.  
EB: i admit i'm not sure what to think about your dream/memory but i don't think you're crazy.  
TT: Thank you. It's something of a relief to hear that.  
EB: have you talked to anyone else about this?  
TT: Not yet. I try not to share too much genuine emotion with Strider, it's better for everyone that way.  
TT: And Jade…  
TT: Might be too worried about me.  
TT: There isn't much she can do from her island so I don't see a reason to bother her with this.  
EB: if that's what you want then ok. i won't tell anyone either.  
EB: but we're all your friends and i know we like to fuck around but when you really need support we'll all be here for you.  
TT: See, this is why you'd make such a compelling leader.  
EB: haha. leader for what?  
TT: I don't know. Just activities that require leaders.   
EB: if you say so!  
TT: Can I ask you a question?  
EB: other than that one?  
TT: Yes.  
EB: ok.  
TT: What's an ectobiologist?  
EB: huh? oh my chumhandle.  
EB: i don't remember. i think it's from ghost busters.   
TT: Hmm.   
EB: hmm?  
TT: Nevermind. Thanks again for listening to me.  
TT: I know this sounds glib, but I think I will consult the cards about some of this.  
EB: anytime rose! 

Now that you're thinking about the cards, the thought occupies all the available space in your brain. Of course, you think, you should have done this immediately. Somehow, you just know that the cards have the answers. You nearly trip over the hem of your blanket as you run up the stairs back to room, but you hurry on undaunted.

Your room is still cold, but a house this size takes hours to heat. You throw yourself on the bed and grab the cards, shuffling them as best as you can. With a shaking hand you pull the top card, and you catch yourself holding your breath in anticipation.

You flip it and set it down, waiting for a moment of realization. None comes. The card is just like the others, unreadable. You try to find meaning in the illustrated God and his many tentacles but nothing comes. Determined to find something you pick up the deck and look through it, hoping to find something, to fall back into the trance that captivated you last night.

Nothing.

You drop everything, feeling ashamed of yourself, and stack them in a haphazard pile on your bedside table. This is what happens when you put your faith in the occult, because magic is fake as shit.

Sighing, you make your way back to the laptop and pick up your work. When your room no longer feels like the inside of a refrigerator you pick up your knitting needles for a bit and continue your bucolic outfit for mister Freud. He looks out of place without the typical adornment of an extra knitted appendage or three that grace most trinkets in your room.

You're just finishing a purl row when you're hit with the loudest sound you've ever heard. It causes you to drop your needles and cover your ears, but doing so makes you realize the sound is coming from inside your own head. You could describe it as a wet roar but that would hardly suffice. It fades away, allowing you to think more clearly, and the only conclusion you can come to is that the sound wasn't a roar, it was the glub of a monstrous creature calling for help. Heart pounding from shock and fear, you glance at the deck of tarot cards.

There's one card resting face-up in the pile, and you crane your neck to see the Tower, you know it before you even get a clear look. 

You take a deep, steadying breath and grab your phone. With shaking fingers you type out a message.

TT: Jade.   
TT: Where the fuck did you get these cards?


	3. Page of Swords

You sit in silence, waiting for a reply, but none comes. After 10 minutes you start to shiver, and realize the total quiet means the furnace has shut off again. You pull on a pair of gloves and a scarf of your own creation and prepare yourself for a battle with the decrepit old thing. You know nothing about mechanical work, but you have access to YouTube and a hammer; what else could you even need? For a moment you hesitate at the door, and eventually you decide to shuffle the deck and take it with you. As unnerving as you find it, you dislike the idea of leaving it behind more. 

As you walk into the basement you hear the patter of snow hitting the windows. The stairs creak loudly under your feet and the bare bulb lighting the path flickers ominously. You’ve avoided going down here, mostly because it’s where your mom spends a lot of her time. The unfinished walls are dusted with cobwebs and stained with years of neglected water damage. 

You find the furnace under the stairwell, but curiosity compels you deeper into the room. Tattered boxes stacked in piles, empty bottles, a rusted bike you tried to ride once as a child; it’s about what you would expect. What you don’t expect is a tunnel that leads away from the house, ending only in darkness. With your phone as a flashlight you follow it, feeling the ground dip gently as you go. The more you descend, the warmer you feel, enough so that you can unwrap your scarf and drape it over your shoulders. You’re approaching the end, you can tell because a green light cuts through the darkness on the other side. 

You emerge in a science lab, one that you understand is your mother’s even though you’ve never seen it before. There’s a huge monitor on one wall, connected to huge computers by a tangle of wires. You swipe away a layer of dust and observe the interface, but it’s like nothing you’ve seen before. One time, when you were much younger, your mother offered to show you around the lab, but you declined and she never asked again. 

While you contemplate the machines in front of you, your phone nearly vibrates out of your hand. You don’t need to look to see who is sending you this tidal wave of messages, so you slide it in your pocket and let him tire himself out. 

The center of the room is dedicated to a gigantic grid of green cubes. You walk down an aisle, observing the rows of neatly placed hubs. They look like they should be generating power, but when you pick one up it feels distinctly empty. At the intersection of the quadrants is a circular platform. You squat down and wipe away the dust and grime, revealing a spirograph motif.The platform clicks under your weight, but like everything else in the room, lacks the power to do whatever it was meant to do. 

You continue onward, sneezing your way through the cloud of dust you disturbed. In the corner of the room, so nondescript you nearly walked right past it, a loose window frame lies uselessly on the floor. Such a mundane object looks radical in this room of prototyped technology, and there are no windows in any of these walls. 

As you walk within a few feet, you can feel and hear the static electricity coursing through the area. Sure enough, you can see the frame is plugged into the wall, generating power though nothing else does. Where you expect to see glass, you see only black, as though the window is looking through yet another mysterious tunnel. You pick it up, flip it over: more black. In a rush of either curiosity or just stupidity, you set it back down and stick your arm in up to the elbow. 

You feel nothing. Less than nothing. It’s as if you have placed part of yourself directly into the void, where even air can’t be felt. If you closed your eyes, you could pretend you had no arm at all. So you bend down and reach deeper, knees pressing into the concrete floor. You’re up to your shoulder now. You open and close your hand into a fist, swing your arm left to right, extending far past the visible boundary of the frame.

And then the cries start again, loud and sudden. Startled, the arm supporting your weight gives out— you’re thrown off balance. There’s nothing you can do as you feel gravity pull you down headfirst into the void. 

TG: rose  
TG: rose   
TG: rose  
TG: rose goddammit where are you  
TG: and dont say school ok we all know youre homeschooled  
TG: …  
TG: so harsh rose  
TG: alright well i hope you liked my present  
TG: dont even ask me where i got a life-size cardboard cutout of freud because im not at liberty to discuss that kind of privileged information  
TG: send me a photo of whatever morbid debasement you inflict upon him   
TG: need to shake up my loyal readers with some challenging content   
TG: theyre getting pretty fuckin complacent if you ask me  
TG: anyways   
TG: jade says she got you some tarot cards   
TG: what does that crazy shit say about me  
TG: dont be coy i know as soon as you got them you were just itching to see what the spirits had to say about your boy dave  
TG: what is tarot anyways is it like voodoo?   
TG: did jesus have a tarot deck??  
TG: Dave Ive consulted the cards it appears your future holds naught but a storm of dicks bearing down on you.  
TG: a monsoon of meat  
TG: a cyclone of cock  
TG: yeah you would say that  
TG: jesus christ rose can you go even one hypothetical conversation without bringing up dicks   
TG: hey bros taking me to look for a car this weekend  
TG: hes giving me 500 bucks to buy the ass shittingly worst rust bucket that may or may not be road legal  
TG: but i mean  
TG: i guess i wish i could just get like a normal vehicle  
TG: it feels like giving me this death trap on wheels is him starting his quote training unquote again  
TG: its been two and a half years since he last threw me down a flight of stairs   
TG: kinda thought we were done with that  
TG: dont tell him i said that though   
TT: When would I ever be talking to him?  
TG: oh hey  
TG: you really let me go on for a while there  
TG: almost got a bit too loose with my real ass feelings  
TG: just about shared some of that premium strider emotion to a non paying customer  
TG: this aint costco keep moving  
TT: Dave, some of us dealt with our own crises of sexuality and relationship to authority years ago.  
TT: Catch up.  
TG: wait what  
TT: Have you spoken to Jade today?  
TG: no  
TG: what do you mean crises of sexuality  
TG: whos having those  
TT: I don't have time to get into it right now.  
TT: If you see Jade online please let her know I need her.  
TT: Thanks in advance.  
TG: rose what the dick  
TG: wait pretend i didnt say shit about dicks again  
TG: why do you need jade 

GG: hey rose!   
GG: dave said you wanted to talk to me?   
GG: he also said you were being rude to him. is that true rose?? were you being cheeky???   
TT: Jade. Hi. Finally.   
TT: I might have been brusque with him.   
TT: My tolerance for bullshit is sitting extraordinarily low right now. Municipal workers are en route to mark my tolerance with little neon flags so no one trips over it and sues the city for damages.    
TT: You see, Jade.   
TT: I think I’m in space. 


	4. Strength

After a fall that could be considered comically long if it wasn’t so terrifying, you land forcefully and ass-first into an overwhelmingly purple room. When your head clears, you take inventory of your new environment: another window frame, identical to the one you fell through; an abandoned bureau piled with purple papers; an arched window looking out over an equally purple skyline. Every building looks like the tower of a gothic cathedral, copy and pasted a thousand times over and crammed onto what are horrifyingly realizing is a tiny planet. You can see the curve of the horizon, a steep slope leading to the unending blackness of space. 

Faced with this shocking revelation, you do the only thing that makes sense in the moment: you pull out your phone. Full bars. Nice. The rational part of you is screaming to call the cops, call someone, you need to get out of here. The even more rational part is imagining how that conversation would go. 

Not for the first time, you find yourself with a burning desire to speak with Jade. When you were younger and taking your first tottering steps out of puberty, that feeling was confusing, overwhelming. You’ve since learned to keep that feeling in check, but at this particular moment you would really, really like to speak to someone who knows literally anything about space. 

All you have is a phone full of meandering messages from Dave. You brush him off abruptly, you don’t have the gumption to entertain this conversation right now. 

While you wait for Jade to message you, you decide to explore. The fact that you haven’t suffocated in the vacuum of space tells you this small planet must have some sort of atmosphere, so you might as well check it out while you’re here. You dangle your scarf out the window of the room as a landmark to find your way back to the transporter later. 

Out on the streets, the giant towers block most of your view of the black sky. You see only one star, bigger than any star you would see on Earth. You take a photo of it, and a few more of the buildings as you pass them, just to prove to yourself that this isn’t some sort of psychosis-induced hallucination.

You’re both unnerved and relieved by the lack of people on this planet. Despite the evidence of advanced civil engineering, you haven’t crossed paths with anyone else as you stroll down the brick roads. After about an hour of wandering, you realize that every street seems to be leading to a central location, like a town square. That’s your best guess, because whatever is supposed to be there has been blown away completely, like an explosion took a bite out of the planet. 

You tentatively approach the chasm, stepping over strewn bricks and debris from the collapsed buildings. Whatever detonated here did it with enough force to burrow down to the very core. You swear under your breath, taking in the destruction. 

As you walk backwards from the scene, your phone vibrates, making you jump in surprise. You take shelter underneath a stable looking arcade, suddenly worried that whatever attacked here could strike again at any moment, before pulling out your phone. 

It’s Jade. You’re so relieved to hear from her that you’re only slightly passive aggressive about how long it took her to respond. You tell her without much fanfare that you might possibly be in space right now, and follow it up with the photo you took of the purple towers and the large star. You don’t know how you expect her to respond; to be honest you can’t even begin to name the numerous emotions wracking through you, but you certainly don’t expect her to write:

GG: shouldnt the towers be gold?   
TT: ...   
TT: Should they be?   
TT: Do you know this place?   
GG: hmm…    
GG: no   
GG: yes   
GG: sorta   
TT: ?   
GG: i used to dream about a place just like this! but it was all in gold, and there were these funny white aliens walking around. oh my gosh its all coming back to me so quickly.   
GG: i dont understand how you got there! are you sleeping now?   
TT: No. I fell through a magic window.   
TT: So you’ve seen this planet before?   
GG: not a planet! a moon! and it orbited this big beautiful planet. during an eclipse my tower would get so close to this planet i could see into the clouds. i used to think looking at the clouds could show me the future! i was pretty full of shit as a kid   
TT: But you weren’t full of shit. You would give us these cryptic hints about some upcoming event, and you were always right.    
TT: Truthfully, I was jealous of you. I pretended to know everything, but I didn’t know a thing.   
GG: But rose, i was always so jealous of YOU. you were so cool and and have a funny way of saying things that i didnt always understand!   
TT: Do you still think I’m cool and funny?   
GG: yes rose dont worry youre still cool and funny :p   
TT: Nice 8^]    
GG: but i dont think you should have been jealous of me. i was just a lonely little girl who slept all day because dreaming of being a princess in a tower was better than dealing with my abandonment   
GG: is there a tower like that on your planet? it was on another moon, attached with a huge chain   
TT: There’s definitely nothing attached with a giant chain, but there may have been once.    
[TentacleTherapist sent a file]   
GG: oh noooooo rose what happened there?   
TT: I’m not sure. Some sort of giant explosion.    
TT: I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but it seems more and more likely that the cards you bought me lead me here.    
TT: Not the cards themselves, but the elder gods.   
TT: They’ve been… communing with me, with the cards as a conduit. I have them with me now, but they’re being conveniently quiet.    
TT: It’s like I can only hear them when I’m not thinking about them. And now I’m thinking about very little else.    
GG: hmmm… it kinda sounds like   
GG: how much do you know about quarks?   
TT: Very little. I try to ignore the existence of quantum physics because it falls out of my field of understanding.    
GG: its interesting!    
TT: It doesn’t make any sense.    
GG: well, the problem with quarks is that you can't observe them naturally, because they change as soon as you look at them!    
GG: so if you are looking at how they interact with matter near them, you might discern that they are spinning clockwise. but when you look directly at them, they start spinning counter-clockwise!   
TT: I see. And … this is something you've experienced yourself?   
GG: no it isnt because i dont have a large hadron collider on my island :p   
GG: but i keep up on the research    
TT: I see.   
TT: I'm afraid I will be at a disadvantage if we continue on this train of thought.   
GG: haha rose you talk like a conversation has a winner and a loser   
TT: Doesn't it?   
TT: Please go on.   
GG: so its like your eyeballs have these little lasers coming out of them that will knock something really sensitive- like a quark- askew!   
GG: does that make sense :?   
TT: I understand the concept, but I have to plead ignorance on what this has to do with my situation.   
GG: well based on what youre describing, maybe something similar is happening!   
GG: maybe you are getting messages that cant be consciously heard  
GG: because if you think about them it sends out brain waves that disrupt or corrupt their journey to you  
GG: which is why you can only “hear” them when youre not listening for them  
TT: So you believe me?  
GG: its pretty strange rose and hard to wrap my head around but so is quantum physics and it is definitely real!  
TT: Huh.  
TT: You know, if I was in your position and you told me what I just confided in you, I’m not sure I would believe it.   
TT: Thank you for indulging in my delusions, if that’s what they are.   
GG: i dont think youre delusional. i think youre the smartest person ive ever known and if you think something is wrong, i want to help!  
TT: Thanks, Jade. You’re a really special friend.  
TT: I’m not prone to rhapsody, and I think attempting to do so would leave both of us squirming uncomfortably in our seats like so many nascent larvae.   
GG: D:  
TT: But I…  
TT: Appreciate your friendship.  
TT: If you could entertain just one other favor, would you keep your eye out on space for me?  
GG: like … all of it? :/  
TT: Yes. Please.   
TT: The more I reflect on the cries that have been plaguing me since I received the tarot deck, I begin to understand   
TT: They are asking for help. In their own distinctly terrifying way.   
TT: I think whatever blew a hole in this planet is moving deeper into space and terrorizing the very elder gods themselves.   
TT: And I intend to help them. 


	5. Ten of Swords

You sit on the ground, trying to get comfortable among the rubble and loose stones. The air around you smells like dust and smoke; it tickles your nose when you breathe in too deeply. The only sounds are the creaks and groans of toppled buildings, the splintered wood straining to support them. The silence makes it harder to clear your mind. Every banal thought that crosses your mind is amplified. With shaking hands you pull the tarot deck from your pocket, half expecting a tentacle to wrap around your finger. Obviously that doesn’t happen, and you hold it firmly between both palms. 

Jade hypothesized that by actively thinking about the cards, you dispel the messages they’re sending you. So you clear your mind, using the techniques you read once on the meditation Wikipedia page. You catch yourself thinking about a rock digging into your ankle, or how your butt is going numb, or how stupid this is. 

Time slips by but you sit as still as possible, eyes closed. Despite, or maybe because of, everything that’s happened today, you feel your jaw relax and your shoulders slump forwards. It’s as if your body thinks that right now, on a mysterious planet in the middle of space, would be a great time for a nap. Just as you feel yourself being lulled to sleep, you hear it again. It’s the same cry that startled you into the window earlier today, but quieter. Last time, you could swear the sound was coming from your own head; now you’re sure it’s nearby. You can hear it echo between buildings, its tone pleading. 

Not its tone. Their tones. You hear it better now, the discordant wails of multiple voices crying out at once. It’s coming from above you, you’re sure of that. With stiff legs, you run back to the tower you emerged from, taking the stairs two at a time, lungs burning as you go. At the top floor you find an entrance to the bell tower and you burst through it. From up here you can see nearly the whole planet, the curve of the horizon leading to the damaged chunk. The voices are louder now, you can hear it between your laboured breaths. 

You plant your hands on the rails and lean over the tower, head wrenched upwards. You thought that the sky was empty, devoid of anything but the solitary star, but as you look closely, you learn that you were mistaken. The sky isn’t empty. You see one of them first, its black body camouflaged against the dark void of space but definitely there, tentacles writhing. Then you see another, and another, and you realize the sky is full of them. 

The depiction on your cards and old posters are about as accurate a depiction as a millenia-old cave drawing of a mammal. They’re bigger than your mind can conceive, more horrible and terrible than anything you can reckon. 

Space shatters before your very eyes. Like a hammer to glass, destruction streaks out across the sky like the lines of a web, shining blue and green and yellow. The sound of another explosion resonates behind you, and you whip around to see a shard of space itself has crashed onto the planet, slicing another chunk free. Soon after, a bloodied tentacle falls to the ground, bigger than any tower. The whole planet shakes; the building you’re standing in rocks side to side. 

You turn your head back up to the source of the destruction. Your eyes narrow in anger, but as you look out into space, you can’t see who is causing the destruction, just the damage left in their wake. You don’t know where Earth is in relation to you, you don’t know how large a swath was destroyed. Rage boils inside you and you catch yourself hoisting your knee onto the rail, as if getting ready to launch into space. You know, cerebrally, that you can’t stop whoever is out there, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to let them have their wicked way with your universe. 

But what the fuck are you supposed to do? These horrorterrors brought you here, what do they expect? If they really are the gods of the depths of space, what use is a reclusive sixteen year old to them? From their perspective, you’re a speck of dust.

“Why did you bring me here?” You call to them. 

And they’re answering you. And their words reverb inside like sound through a speaker. And every bone in your body shakes with it. And suddenly, you understand.

And everything

Goes

Dark.

JADE: jooooohn are you done yet?  
JOHN: no!   
JADE: ok sorry! im just so nervous and i feel so useless waiting for you. are you sure there isnt anything i can do to help?  
JADE: im so worried about rose :(  
JOHN: you said she told you to keep an eye on space. have you been doing that?  
JADE: durrr john no i have not been doing that   
JADE: of course i have!! im at my telescope right now but i dont see anything out of the ordinary  
JOHN: yeah.  
JOHN: are you SURE you aren’t just trolling me here? because i’m starting to feel like im getting trolled.  
JADE: what? no john this is serious!!  
JADE: do i need to show you the purple planet photos she took again?  
JOHN: no no no it’s fine. i found your mysterious ebay seller finally. but this is really fucked up.  
JADE: thats great!  
JADE: what do you mean?   
JOHN: it was weirdly difficult to track him down. its like all traces of his account were wiped off the server.   
JADE: i know john thats why i asked you for help :p what did you find!  
JOHN: an ip address.   
JADE: really?? can we use it to find this person?  
JOHN: it’s 1.   
JOHN: …  
JOHN: jade?  
JADE: im waiting for the rest of it  
JOHN: that’s it. the ip address is 1.  
JADE: that cant be right!  
JOHN: it can’t be right but that’s what is says.  
JOHN: which is why i feel like i’m getting punkd so hard!  
JADE: i SWEAR no one is pulling a prank on you  
JADE: youre really the only one of us that is even into pranks!  
JOHN: well excuse me for struggling to believe that you bought a haunted deck of tarot cards for rose on ebay, which compelled her via subliminal messaging to go to space!!   
JOHN: but...  
JOHN: i also can’t figure out why or how you and rose would go through all this effort to yank my leg.  
JOHN: and i found a forum thread about this ip address. looks like other people have come across it too.  
JADE: oooh is this your super secret dark web hacker forum? so cooooool :)  
JOHN: yes, please continue to think it’s cool and that we aren’t all a bunch of nerds. that’s exactly how you should think of us.   
JOHN: hmm.  
JADE: hmm?  
JOHN: someone was able to track the address to a place called the furthest ring. have you heard of it?  
JADE: no :/  
JADE: sounds like it should be somewhere in australia  
JOHN: maybe.   
JOHN: ok they’re linking to other pages with that same ip address.   
JADE: john are you there?  
JOHN: ok now i know this is bullshit. it just takes me to a gamefaqs thread from three years ago. it’s not even a real game!   
JOHN: wait… hehe i think rose wrote this!  
JOHN: i texted you the link.  
JOHN: she is such a nerd. this is so melodramatic she’s like rping her way through a made up game.   
JOHN: you know she was talking to me about a game that she thought we were going to play together! maybe she was thinking of this old forum.  
JOHN: is this …art? maybe it’s supposed to be a metaphor but it’s going right over my head.   
JOHN: oh look there’s photos!  
JOHN: what the fuck.   
JOHN: what the fuck!!  
JADE: what is it?  
JADE: john?  
JADE: helloooooooooo?


	6. Two of Pentacles

Your name is Jade Harley, and you have no idea what the fuck is going on. Three hours ago, your best friend - having quite literally disappeared off the face of the planet - stopped responding to your texts. Now John is MIA, having suffered one of his patented mental breakdowns after finding some admittedly strange photos of himself on a mysterious GameFAQ board ostensibly written by Rose. Knowing John, he’ll be out of commission for at least a few hours until he can climb out of his spiral of confusion. Gosh he can be so dramatic sometimes!

You could ask Dave for help finding Rose, but you aren’t sure what he could offer apart from rap lyrics and crude cartoons, so you’ll leave that option in your back pocket for now. Not that you wouldn’t enjoy a brief moment of levity, but he has the uncanny ability to distract you from whatever you’re trying to concentrate on. That leaves just you and the entire expanse of space. 

The floorboards of the atrium are wearing under your feet as you pace back and forth between your computer and your telescope. You spent a year of your life dedicated to finding the golden planet you visited in your dreams to convince yourself if was real, checking against star charts to find some unaccounted for celestial body. You never found it, and then the dreams stopped. You’re going to try even harder now to find the purple planet. 

Bec watches you from his spot on the floor, head following your path left and right like an engaged tennis fan. When you let out a loud, exasperated sigh, his ears twitch. You get the feeling that he understands what’s going on better than you do. It’s a feeling you have often. So you ask him outright if he has any suggestions. You run him through what you’ve tried so far, mostly for your own benefit, since talking out loud helps you organize your thoughts. Scouring the website John sent you offered nothing but dead ends, you just aren’t savvy enough with computers to know what to look for. Your telescope is trained to the most likely spot in the sky where a planet could hide, but even that is just grasping at straws. Your view of space is limited by your hemisphere, the season, even the hour. It isn’t like finding a needle in a haystack; it’s like finding a particular atom in a needle in a haystack. 

To your surprise, Bec rises. He’s big enough that he clears the room in a couple of steps, coming to a stop at your side. He nudges the telescope with his nose, pushing it left of where you’d meticulously set it. You call out a ‘hey!’ to him, but he just makes his way back to his spot on the floor, watching you. 

You grumble a bit, you weren’t done taking notes on the location yet, but you peer through the eyeglass. 

At first, you think the telescope lens has shattered. Your stomach sinks at the thought; you have money, but not enough for this. Hell, you’re pretty sure you’d have to go to NASA to get a replacement for a telescope this strong. But the cracks are glowing, shifting in the light, and you realise it isn’t your lens that cracked; it’s space. 

Worry and frustration bubble up inside you, overwhelming any sense of pragmaticism you were harbouring. This is too much, how can anyone expect you to figure this out? Even if you did locate a planet that all the astronomers and satellites and rovers never discovered, how are you supposed to get there? And now the universe is falling apart! You sink to the floor, blinking out fat tears. This is useless, you’re useless. 

No. You’re not useless. You dig the heels of your palms into your eyes and shake the negative thoughts from your head. Still sniffling, you rise up. There’s still more you can do for Rose. You’d never forgive yourself if something happened to her. You made plans to meet up someday; she was going to show you snow, make snow angels with you. You would take up to the lip of the volcano, let her see just how big the ocean is. 

First, you need to record your findings. You take a fat red marker and trace the path of the crack onto your star charts. Part of the trails lead off beyond the horizon, but you can easily determine the locus of origin. A quick search online reveals thousands of posts about the phenomenon in the sky already, with baffled scientists struggling to explain what happened. 

You lace up your steel-toed boots and tie your curls back in a messy bun. There’s on place you can go, someplace you’ve never visited before. Since you were a child, you understood that one spot on your island has answers to questions you wouldn’t know to ask. Bec perks up, anticipating. 

You turn to him, your index finger raised firmly in a warning. 

JADE: bec i am going to the frog temple and if you stop me you will be so sorry mister    
JADE: there will be no steaks for a year i am not kidding!!   
JADE: i will neuter you dont think that i wont!! 

Bec’s ears press flat against the top of his head. You consider yourself understood. 

You hop from transportalizer to transportalizer until reaching the main floor and bolt out the front door, pausing just long enough to equip yourself with a selection of rifles. The path to the temple is overgrown, you long since gave up trying to explore the ruins; Bec would bring you home before you veered too close, dazed and seeing green around the edges of your vision. You move easily over the roots and stones that hide underfoot, eyes dead set straight ahead. 

You rush through the branches and into the clearing, the remains of the old frog temple just feet away. It dawns on you that you never figured out how you would scale to the entrance. You step to the edge of the water, huffing and puffing, when a cracking branch behind you catches your attention. You turn and find Bec, tail wagging from the run. He hasn’t looked this excited in years, but you deflate with disappointment. He dashes toward you, green lightning flying off his fur.

JADE: no bec please-

The familiar rush, the warmth of green light. You feel your feet come free of the ground, and then replaced a fraction of a second later. You open your eyes, expecting to find yourself back in your room.

Even through the green haze that clouds your vision, you can see the unfamiliar walls of the frog temple. You pause to examine the carvings, but Bec trots forward, turning his head at your impatiently. The mouth of the frog temple isn’t deep, but the moonlight struggles to illuminate anything at all, so you pull your phone out, using it as a flashlight to reveal the way. The hallway ends suddenly, so suddenly that Bec has to rush in front of you to keep you from falling down the pit headfirst while you looked idly at the art along the walls. You give him a good scratch behind the ears. 

JADE: dont tell me i have to jump down there…

You shine the light over the edge, but you can’t see the bottom. You trust that Bec wouldn’t endanger you, but you aren’t excited about this either. You squat down next to him and give him a hug, thanking him for getting you this far. He licks your cheek. With shaking hands, you stick your phone in your pocket, dousing the hallway in an oppressive darkness. 

You leap over the edge, landing so heavily on your feet that you roll forward with momentum. You manage to push yourself up and fish the phone back out, squinting against its bright light. Bec barks once, then shuffles off, paws kicking at loose pebbles before disappearing into a halo of green. 

Before you, you recognize two transportalizers, one yellow and one purple. Since you aren’t an idiot, you understand where each one will lead you, but you pause with indecision. Rose is on the purple planet, but the gold planet is the one you dreamt of every night for years. You remember, vaguely, talking with a queen. She called you a hero, but you never did understand why.

You’ll go there first. She must have transport, and if you explain the situation you’re sure she will offer her guards to send with you as you search for Rose.

Content with your plan, you step on the yellow transportalizer. Though you’re travelling further-by order of magnitudes- than between floors in your house, the journey lasts the same amount of time. In a fraction of a second, you feel your feet on the ground again. Muscle memory moves you off the pedestal. Your grandpa and Bec both impressed transportalizer safety onto you, and lingering on an active pad was number one in the DON’T column.

Unfortunately, you don’t realize there’s no floor to step on until your foot breezes past where the ground should be. It’s like missing a step in a staircase, except your foot keeps going, pulling you into the void of space. Instinct kicks in and you reach up, grabbing the edge of the pedestal before tumbling down into the never-ending darkness. 

Well, you wouldn’t tumble because there’s no gravity. But it still wouldn’t be good! You pull yourself up quite easily onto the small chunk of floating debris that houses the transportalizer, holding on tightly so you don’t drift away, a much more difficult task. 

You want to leave, get back to the frog temple and head to Derse, but you can’t pull enough of your weight down to activate the transportalizer. 

There are other bits of golden buildings floating next to you, decidedly unattached to anything resembling a planet. Travelling in tandem with the debris it’s impossible to judge how fast you’re moving, but if you’re on the shrapnel loosed from an explosion it must be pretty fucking fast. You can’t even tell which direction you’re moving in- if you didn’t know any better, you would think you were completely still. 

That illusion shatters when you look behind you. 

Your first thought is that, of all the things you might expect to find in space, a soap bubble is not one of them. Your second and more pressing thought is that it’s growing far too quickly, and you have no way of steering around it. 

You close your eyes before the collision, but it never comes. Instead, inexplicably, the pedestal that you cling to turns into fine sand, and the air around you warms. You glance down at your hands. It’s not sand running through your fingers, it’s chalk. 

You spin around wildly, nearly tripping over your feet. On the horizon, rain falls in yellow and pink, so bright you have to squint. Through half-lidded eyes, you can barely make out a silhouette standing a few yards ahead, her back turned to you. Despite her uncharacteristic orange dress, you could never mistake the head of blonde hair, the confident stance. You dart forward, kicking up clouds of white chalk.

JADE: rose!!

Rose startles at your voice, clearly lost in thought. She turns to face you. Her pupil-less eyes open in shock, stopping you dead in your tracks.

ROSE: Jade?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I made a homestuck twitter you can find me @themilfofspace


End file.
